(578) Very true, I said. But imagine one of these owners, the master say of some fifty slaves, together with his family and property and slaves, carried off by a god into the wilderness, where there are no freemen to help him—will he not be in an agony of fear lest he and his wife and children should be put to death by his slaves? Yes, he said, he will be in the utmost fear. The time has arrived when he will be compelled to flatter divers of his slaves, and make many promises to them of freedom and other things, much against his will—he will have to cajole his own servants. Yes, he said, that will be the only way of saving himself. And suppose the same god, who carried him away, to surround him with neighbours who will not suffer one man to be the master of another, and who, if they could catch the offender, would take his life? His case will be still worse, if you suppose him to be everywhere surrounded and watched by enemies. And is not this the sort of prison in which the tyrant will be bound—he who being by nature such as we have described, is full of all sorts of fears and lusts? His soul is dainty and greedy, and yet alone, of all men in the city, he is never allowed to go on a journey, or to see the things which other freemen desire to see, but he lives in his hole like a woman

(431) worse—in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled. Yes, there is reason in that. And now, I said, look at our newly-created State, and there you will find one of these two conditions realized; for the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words ‘temperance’ and ‘self-mastery’ truly express the rule of the better part over the worse. Yes, he said, I see that what you say is true. Let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants, and in the freemen so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class. Certainly, he said. Whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason, and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion, are to be found only in a few, and those the best born and best educated. Very true. These two, as you may perceive, have a place in our State; and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few. That I perceive, he said. Then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires, and master of itself, ours may claim such a designation? Certainly, he replied. It may also be called temperate, and for the same reasons? Yes. And if there be any State in which rulers and subjects will

(27) Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord: neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.

(5) And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committeth much, of him they will ask more.

(42) "I will not permit the evil senses to control the bodies of those who love me, nor will I allow evil emotions and evil thoughts to enter them. I become as a porter or doorkeeper, and shut out evil, protecting the wise from their own lower nature. But to the wicked, the envious and the covetous, I come not, for such cannot understand the mysteries of Mind; therefore, I am unwelcome. I leave them to the avenging demon that they are making in their own souls, for evil each day increases itself and torments man more sharply, and each evil deed adds to the evil deeds that are gone before until finally evil destroys itself. The punishment of desire is the agony of unfulfillment."

(15) But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smit his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

(51) The king's place is the throne, the horse's the gate. What is justice but putting each in his place? What injustice but putting each in what is not his place? Nothing is vain of all that God has created, Whether vengeance or mercy, or plain dealing or snares. Not one of all these is good absolutely, Each is harmful or beneficial according to its place, Ah! many are the chastisements sent to the poor Which are more beneficial to him than bread and sweets; Because sweets out of season excite biliousness,

(90) Dost not thou seek after deeper subtlety than we? Thou wilt [wishest to] climb into the most hidden secrets of God, which is not fit for any man to go about. We seek only after human prudence and subtlety, but thou wouldst be equal with God, and know all; how God is in every thing, both in heaven and in hell, in devils, angels and men. Therefore, sure it is not unlawful to seek for a cunning, sharp wit, and after crafty designs, which bring honour, power or authority, and riches. A Reply.

(31) And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?

(93) If a simple man, that cannot place his words handsomely, cometh before him, then he taketh him up short, as if he were a dog; and if the man has any business before him, then, in his eyes, only those of worldly esteem are in the right, and he lets them carry the cause, right or wrong: Take heed, Friend, what manner of princely angel indeed thou art; thou wilt find it well enough in the following chapter, concerning the fall of the devil; that will be thy looking-glass in which to see thyself. II.

(13) And being a lover of men, he is a hater of the wicked, entertaining a perfect aversion to all villany. He must consequently learn to be faithful both to himself and his neighbours, and obedient to the commandments. For he is the true servant of God who spontaneously subjects himself to His commands. And he who already, not through the commandments, but through knowledge itself, is pure in heart, is the friend of God. For neither are we born by nature possessing virtue, nor after we are born does it grow naturally, as certain parts of the body; since then it would neither be voluntary nor praiseworthy.

(3) And I: "My Master, among such as these I ought forsooth to recognise some few, Who were infected with these maladies." And he to me: "Vain thought thou entertainest; The undiscerning life which made them sordid Now makes them unto all discernment dim. Forever shall they come to these two buttings; These from the sepulchre shall rise again With the fist closed, and these with tresses shorn. Ill giving and ill keeping the fair world Have ta'en from them, and placed them in this scuffle; Whate'er it be, no words adorn I for it. Now canst thou, Son, behold the transient farce Of goods that are committed unto Fortune, For which the human race each other buffet; For all the gold that is beneath the moon, Or ever has been, of these weary souls Could never make a single one repose." "Master," I said to him, "now tell me also What is this Fortune which thou speakest of, That has the world's goods so within its clutches?" And he to me: "O creatures imbecile, What ignorance is this which doth beset you? Now will I have thee learn my judgment of her.

(41) When a master places a spade in the hand of a slave, Like this spade, our hands are our Master's hints to us; Yea, if ye consider, they are His directions to us. When ye have taken to heart His hints, Ye will shape your life in reliance on their direction; Wherefore these hints disclose His intent, Take the burden from you, and appoint your work. He that bears it makes it bearable by you, Accept His command, and you will be able to execute it; Seek union with Him, and you will find yourselves united.

(574) He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the body-guard of love and share his empire. These in his democratic days, when he was still subject to the laws and to his father, were only let loose in the dreams of sleep. But now that he is under the dominion of love, he becomes always and in waking reality what he was then very rarely and in a dream only; he will commit the foulest murder, or eat forbidden food, or be guilty of any other horrid act. Love is his tyrant, and lives lordly in him and lawlessly, and being himself a king, leads him on, as a tyrant leads a State, to the performance of any reckless deed by which he can maintain himself and the rabble of his associates, whether those whom evil communications have brought in from without, or those whom he himself has allowed to break loose within him by reason of a similar evil nature in himself. Have we not here a picture of his way of life? Yes, indeed, he said. And if there are only a few of them in the State, and the

(579) hidden in the house, and is jealous of any other citizen who goes into foreign parts and sees anything of interest. Very true, he said. And amid evils such as these will not he who is ill-governed in his own person—the tyrannical man, I mean—whom you just now decided to be the most miserable of all—will not he be yet more miserable when, instead of leading a private life, he is constrained by fortune to be a public tyrant? He has to be master of others when he is not master of himself: he is like a diseased or paralytic man who is compelled to pass his life, not in retirement, but fighting and combating with other men. Yes, he said, the similitude is most exact. Is not his case utterly miserable? and does not the actual tyrant lead a worse life than he whose life you determined to be the worst? Certainly. He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions, even as the State which he resembles: and surely the resemblance holds? Very true, he said.

(162) He whose wickedness is very great brings himself down to that state where his enemy wishes him to be, as a creeper does with the tree which it surrounds.

(440) that when a man’s desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on the side of his reason;— but for the passionate or spirited element to take part with the desires when reason decides that she should not be opposed 3 , is a sort of thing which I believe that you never observed occurring in yourself, nor, as I should imagine, in any one else? Certainly not. Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him—these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them. True, he said. But when he thinks that he is the sufferer of the wrong, then he boils and chafes, and is on the side of what he believes to be justice; and because he suffers hunger or cold or other pain he is only the more determined to persevere and conquer. His noble spirit will not be quelled until he either slays or is slain; or until he hears the voice of the shepherd, that is, reason, bidding his dog bark no more. The illustration is perfect, he replied; and in our State, as we were saying, the auxiliaries were to be dogs, and to hear the voice of the rulers, who are their shepherds. I perceive, I said, that you quite understand me; there is, however, a further point which I wish you to consider.

(2) My son, throw every robber out of your gates. Guard all your gates with torches, which are the words, and you will acquire through all these things a quiet life. But he who will not guard these things will become like a city which is desolate, since it has been captured. All kinds of wild beasts have trampled upon it, for thoughts which are not good are evil wild beasts. And your city will be filled with robbers, and you will not be able to acquire peace, but only all kinds of savage wild beasts. The Wicked One, who is a tyrant, is lord over these. While directing this, he (the Wicked One) is beneath the great mire. The whole city, which is your soul, will perish.

(12) And in his pride he struck and smote himself with darkness and blindness, and made himself a devil, and that he must be, and abide so eternally. ["In God he knew only the Majesty, and not the Word in the centre, which has the fan or casting shovel: He blinded himself with the astringent darkness; for he would needs in flame himself, and rule in the fire over the light, and over the meekness."]

A certain youth in the service of a great king was dissatisfied with his rations, so he went to the cook and reproached him with dishonoring his master by his stinginess. The youth would not listen to his excuses, but wrote off an angry letter of complaint to the king, in terms of outward compliment and respect, but betraying an angry spirit. On receiving this letter, the king observed that it contained only complaints about meat and drink, and evinced no aspirations after spiritual food, and therefore needed no answer, as "the proper answer to a fool is silence." When the youth received no answer to his letter, he was much surprised, and threw the blame on the cook and on the messenger, ignoring the fact that the folly of his own letter was the real reason of its being left unanswered. He wrote in all five letters, but the king persisted in his refusal to reply, saying that fools are enemies to God and man, and that he who has any dealings with a fool fouls his own nest. Fools only regard material meat and drink, whereas the food of the wise is the light of God, as it is said by the Prophet, "I pass the night in the presence of my Lord, who giveth me meat and drink," and again, "Fasting is the food of God," i.e., the means by which spiritual food is obtained. Explanation of the text "And Moses conceived a secret fear within him. We said 'Fear not, for thou shalt be uppermost (over Pharaoh's magicians) '".